Ouch. skripitis, comments?
https://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/soccer-fc-yahoo/lloyd--solo-among-five-female-soccer-players-to-file-wage-complaint-against-u-s--soccer-142334906.html
USA Women's World Cup champions are calling out their own federation.
Five leading stars of the United States women's national team
announced Thursday on NBC's "Today" show that they have filed a
complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
against U.S. Soccer, claiming wage discrimination relative to the
men's national team.
"I think the timing is right," co-captain and reigning world player of
the year Carli Lloyd told Matt Lauer on the show. "I think that we've
proven our worth over the years. Just coming off of a [2015 Women's]
World Cup win, the pay disparity between the men and women is just too
large. And we want to continue to fight."
The four other players in the filing, which requests an investigation
into U.S. Soccer, are goalkeeper Hope Solo, striker Alex Morgan,
playmaker Megan Rapinoe and central defender and co-captain Becky
Sauerbrunn.
They believe that the women's national team, which enjoys a national
popularity that often exceeds the men's in the mainstream, drives far
more revenue to the U.S. Soccer Federation than they are compensated
for. The trouble is, as laid out in a recent investigation by the New
York Daily News, the financial constructions that channel those
incomes are so tousled that there's no telling what money is brought
in by the women and how much of it by the men. The women say they have
been stonewalled by the federation in their attempts to see the
financial statements for themselves.
The players point to the vast disparity in performance bonuses.
Indeed, the men's team received more – a shared $2.5 million just for
reaching the World Cup – than the women did for winning the entire
thing ($1.8 million). A similar gap exists in all other bonuses as
well – the men sometimes collect 10 times more for winning a friendly
than the women do. The matter, however, is more complex than that. The
women, unlike the men, also draw a full-time salary from the
federation of up to $72,000, not including up to hundreds of thousands
in bonuses they typically collect, a baseline guarantee the men don't
enjoy. They are also compensated by the federation for participating
in the National Women's Soccer League.
But the men's top earners tend to exceed the women's most years. And
while U.S. Soccer deserves credit for investing heavily in the women's
program for many years when it was a loss leader, the women argue that
they are now being short-changed.
"We have been quite patient over the years with the belief that the
Federation would do the right thing and compensate us fairly," Lloyd
said in a statement released to The New York Times.
"The numbers speak for themselves," Solo added. "We are the best in
the world, have three World Cup championships, four Olympic
championships, and the USMNT get paid more to just show up than we get
paid to win major championships."
The action comes just months before the women will attempt to win a
fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal in Rio de Janeiro. And it
further escalates the standoff with U.S. Soccer over their working
conditions. In December, the women refused to play in one of the
friendlies scheduled in a nationwide tour to celebrate the World Cup
victory. They argued that the field in Hawaii was subpar, the day
after Rapinoe tore her ACL on a poor practice field. U.S. Soccer
acknowledged its mistake and apologized.
But within a few months, the two sides had filed a suit and
counter-suit against each other over the players' right to strike. The
players and the federation are hashing out a new collective bargaining
agreement after the last one expired in 2012. While the federation
argues that the memorandum of understanding both parties have been
working under since then conserves the no-strike clause from the
original CBA, the players counter that it does not, because it isn't
specified. When the players, through their representative, wouldn't
rule out a strike, U.S. Soccer sued to pre-empt one and the players
counter-sued.
This entire debate rests on a larger question over women's sports: if
women generate less money than men, are they entitled to the same pay
for the same work? FIFA pays out a good deal more prize money for the
men's World Cup than it does for the women's, arguing that the
disparity in revenue is vast. Again, the Daily News pointed out that
this was presently impossible to verify, and the Women's World Cup
drew enormous television ratings stateside, yet FIFA awards a Women's
World Cup-winning team $2 million. When Germany won the men's World
Cup in 2014, it collected $35 million.
The women’s national team posits that this entire argument is moot.
"The women have without dispute vastly outperformed the men," their
attorney Jeffrey Kessler told the Times, "not just on the playing
field but economically for the USSF. The women have generated all the
money in comparison with the men."
They just want their fair share. If their complaint is successful,
they could be awarded millions in back pay. Meanwhile, U.S. Soccer
points to its history of funding the women's game and said through a
spokesman that it was "disappointed."
"These women are very disappointed in U.S. soccer,'' Kessler countered
to Lauer. "When they asked for the same treatment as the men, they
were told it was irrational. Now, that might be a good answer in 1816.
It's not acceptable answer in 2016."